Development and validation of a high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometric method for simultaneous determination of bupropion, quetiapine and escitalopram in human plasma

Abstract

In the present study, an effective high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometric (HPLC/MS/MS) method was developed and validated to simultaneously determine bupropion (BUP), quetiapine (QUE) and escitalopram (ESC) in human plasma using carbidopa as the internal standard. Chromatographic separation was achieved on a Waters Sun Fire C-18 column using reversed-phase chromatography. The MS/MS experiment was performed in positive ion multiple reaction monitoring mode to produce product ions of m/z 240.3184.2 for BUP, 384.2253.1 for QUE, 325.3109.3 for ESC and 227.2181.2 for the internal standard. The method showed good linearity (R(2)0.997), precision (relative standard deviation 7.5%), satisfactory intra- and interday accuracy (88.4-113.0%) and acceptable extraction recovery (87.2-115.0%), matrix effect (84.5.5-108.7%) and stability (92.3-103.5%). The method was successfully applied to determine the concentrations of BUP, QUE and ESC in human plasma samples. Copyright (c) 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.